Halo 2 , In Hind Sight
by Tyrammafar
Summary: One is a man that fights for his own reasons,for blood spilled.The other is a warrior of a faith none but he understands,a follower instead of a leader.Both are stranded in a wasteland,and both are doomed to die...unless they learn to accept the other.
1. The Jump

**This begins at the last Earth level in Halo 2, when the Covenant ship goes to warp. Everything that happens in this story is intentional…I do my research, this is exactly how it is supposed to be fore this story. Halo 3 has NO meaning in this story, none of the events have happened, we don't know what it is about. Got that? **

**Good, less explaining for those that think they have it all figured out…**

**Now that I've gotten my anger out, how about we start this thing?**

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**Halo 2**

**In Hind Sight**

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**Chapter 1**

**The Jump**

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_Humans…so easy to kill. _Drak thought as he raised his blade for the killing blow. _So weak and helpless…such a strange species to have survived for so long._

_At least they will soon be gone, and the great journey will begin…_

Drak was about to bring the blade down to silence the human, but it suddenly sputtered and went out. The charge was gone, and the human raised its weapon…

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_Earlier…_

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"Sergeant!" Chris Harper called through his helmet, but it was no use; the communicator's circuits had been fried by a plasma grenade that had gone off nearby. "Sarge, don't leave me here!" Chris watched as the Pelican flew off, leaving the Marine behind. The sky was filled with the fire of both UNSC and Covenant, and it only increased as the Covenant cruiser began to move away.

The enemy was retreating.

Chris whooped, shaking his battle rifle in the air. After the Covenant were gone, he would be picked up by the nearest Pelican and be hailed as a hero for being the last surviving member of his squad. He didn't even think twice about his fallen comrades; they had been throwing him around since day one, and he didn't even know their names.

He stopped yelling when he saw the light at the bow of the Covenant cruiser, a sign it was about to jump into subspace. But it was still inside the city! Chris gulped, watching the UNSC ship following it, moving close so as to be taken along with the ship when it jumped. When the ship jumped, everything in the city would be killed, burning the buildings closest to the blast and incinerating anything not made of metal or rock. Including Chris himself.

Chris turned and ran, trying to put some distance between himself and the ship, to extend his life by a second at the least. He saw a Covenant bunker, glowing bright blue. He ducked behind it and pulled it so his back was to a wall, the shield covering him almost completely. From this makeshift shelter he watched, and waited, for death to come.

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Drak

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Drak shook his fist at the Phantom, his golden armor gleaming in the sun. His second-in-command had been waiting for this moment for a long time, and Drak knew it. He just didn't think it would ever come. The Elite had gone aboard and made sure that Drak could not follow, telling his troops that he had perished when the Demon attacked.

Lies.

But it was useless; the traitor had taken every precaution to secure his position as leader, and had sabotaged Drak's communication system. His shield was barely operational now, and at that moment it flickered and went out entirely.

The Elite was a brilliant being, Drak had to admit. He had set everything up perfectly, and even made sure Drak would not have any weapon but his blade at the time. Such a clever being, doing such a terrible thing. Drak saw the field in front of the cruiser, and knew it would most likely kill him. At least he could witness firsthand the destruction of the human city.

The humans…why were they here? This was completely unexpected, but it also meant that the planet would soon be destroyed. Unfortunately, Drak would not be there to witness it.

Drak turned to look at the piled bodies of both humans and Covenant, shaking his head. So many lives lost, and he would soon join the ranks of the dead. He walked slowly, trying half-heartedly to find shelter. He would die in the most dishonorable way; by his own brother's hand.

A glint of metal caught his eye, and he saw the scorched remains of a human armored vehicle. A 'Scorpion' they called it. The metal was thick, but pitted and warped. Nevertheless, there was a remote chance the reflective metal could protect him. He jumped into the cockpit of the vehicle, finding it melted into slag. Someone had thrown a grenade into this tank.

There, in a human vehicle, Drak waited for his own great journey to begin.

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The sound was all encompassing, the vibration causing chunks of buildings to crumble. The light was so bright that it itself gave off heat, melting metal and rock around the point-of-origin. The heat from the blast vaporized some things entirely, and leveled other buildings with sheer force of expansion. And all the chaos that was the universe coalesced into a bright explosion, a tiny model of the Big Bang. It spread across the city, incinerating all in its path and destroying many buildings.

It was utterly massive, a bright orb of white fire that vaporized much of the human city and laid the rest in ruin. And in it all, people died horribly, burning alive. Both humans and the Covenant that had been left behind were among those that lost their lives.

And worse still, the jump-field broke a barrier between dimensions, bringing unknown horrors into this existence. In a few seconds a bustling human city was turned into a wasteland, filled with the remnants of civilization.

But, there were some survivors…

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Chris Harper

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Chris coughed, choking on ash and dust. The sky was dark from the debris thrown up by the blast. The bunker-shield that he had hid behind was completely depleted, and the projector was molten slag. It had barely been enough to protect him from the blast, and his armor was scorched and pitted. He tried to sit up, but was too dazed to do so. He had been blown from his original hiding place, over a building, and onto a mound of trash, which he turned and rolled down.

The air was filled with the metallic taste of electrostatic-discharge, a smell almost like the iron of blood. The sky was dark-grey, the sun blotted from sight. His weapon seemed mostly unharmed, but he doubted it would help him. There was nothing left alive for miles. Chris spat some blood onto the charred ground, pulling himself to his feet, his bare skin being scorched by the hot air and ground. He looked around at the rubble, but knew that the chances of anything being left was vastly remote, and even he himself could be dead, not yet realizing it.

Chris staggered to his feet, slinging his battle rifle over his shoulder, coughing on the thick smoke in the air. He couldn't remember which way was North, or any other direction, and there were no landmarks left to tell direction, so he headed towards what he thought was outside the city.

The Rift had torn apart everything, and half a Warthog lay on top of the charred remains of an Elite, the metal smoking. In front of him was a Scorpion tank, flipped over completely by the blast or by a shot from a Wraith. Chris went past it, blinking to clear dust from his eyes.

_**K-chiss**_Chris spun around, raising his rifle as an Elite wielding an energy sword ran towards him, closing the distance from the tank to him in less than a second. Chris was on the ground before he could react, the Elite holding the sword up to finish him. There was a glint in the alien's eyes, that of contentment, that he would have yet another kill even though he should be dead. Chris knew the feeling. The blade flickered…and went out.

Chris smiled at the alien, who had lost his own smile and dropped the useless blade projector, Chris raising his rifle to aim right at his head. With such slowness as to preserve the moment, Chris tightened his finger on the trigger, and then pulled it.

_**Click click click**__… _The rifle clicked three times to fire three rounds…but no rounds were fired. _**Click click click**_He fired again, but the tapping noise still filled the otherwise silent air.

"Sonova crap…"

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_**Author's Notes**_

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**Huh? Did you forget to reload?! Idiots…**


	2. Survival of the Fittest

**I forgot to point it out, but this story began near the large building that you enter in Halo 2, where the Scarab walks right over you. This is the area right before the last one, where you jump onto the Scarab. **

**And so it begins…**

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**Chapter 2**

**Survival of the Fittest**

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"Sonova crap…" Chris looked between the battle rifle and the Elite, who was standing above him with mouth slightly open. With a cry he flipped the rifle around and slammed the butt of the weapon into the Elite's stomach, and it doubled over, wheezing. Chris scrabbled up, drawing his knife and turning to run away, but the Elite wrapped his long fingers around his left leg, dropping him to the ground. Chris turned so he was on his back, kicking outwards with his left leg to hit the Elite in the stomach yet again, and now the Elite dropped to the ground while Chris leapt up and ran across the blackened terrain towards a half-destroyed building.

Chris jumped to the side as he went into a hole in the side of the building, pressing his back to the wall and raising his knife to stab downwards if the Elite came through the hole after him. His breath came is gasps, hearing the sound of the Elite coming towards him slowly.

"Human, why do you run like a coward?" The Elite wheezed. "Come and fight me, and die with honor! Or will you be like the rest of your pathetic race and cower behind stone and steel?" Chris grimaced at the insult, but stayed put, waiting. "Come on…I do not wish to chase you over this barren ruin you call a city."

Chris couldn't keep quiet. "It was a real city before you decided to blow it to bits!"

"I have you now!" The Elite came running through the hole, growling and looking around. Chris jumped onto the alien's back, trying to stick his knife into the thing's throat, but it dropped down and slung him off, and Chris landed on his back in a pile of hot ash. "Nice try, human; it will not work again."

"Because next time you won't be alive for me to ambush!" Chris said, getting to his feet and ducking under the Elite's legs and running back into the blackened street, the alien right behind.

"Come here, pest, so that I may crush you lie the bug you are!" The Elite yelled, gasping for breath. Chris ran to the tank, his boots crushing recently cooled glass on the ground, and he jumped to the upturned tracks of the tank, turning to fall onto the Elite as he came towards him. Chris had height now, and he threw himself onto the approaching alien, knocking it down and attempting to get the knife to the thing's neck. The Elite grabbed his wrist, holding him back, but just barely, as Chris was putting his weight down as well.

"Just die already!" He hissed between clenched teeth. The Elite spat into his face, kicking him off of him.

"Do it yourself, if you can!" Chris rolled to his feet, taking off again with the Elite just behind. He had almost no chance to win, this was hopeless, but he had to try. "Come back here and make this a challenge at the least!" Chris looked over his shoulder at the alien, and then back ahead, where he saw something that he could use to his advantage; a manhole, almost invisible in the blackened terrain. Chris stepped over it with a slightly longer stride, turning around after a few steps to see the Elite still running after him. Just as he hoped, the Elite stepped into the open manhole.

_**Crack! **_The Elite cried out in agony as its left leg fell into the hole, falling forward as it leg caught on the lower lip and broke with an audible crack. The Elite pulled himself out, looking up at Chris with narrowed eyes, multiple jaws tightened together from the pain.

"Foul trickery…" The alien snarled, trying to crawl towards him. "Come on, finish it and let this be at an end!"

"I think I'd rather let you rot here." Chris said, smiling.

"Such dishonorable treachery I could only expect from a human." The alien turned on its back, looking down at the broken leg, which was bent at an odd angle in the middle of the shin. "_Grehas..._why do you humans leave these holes in the middle of your roads?!"

"They're usually covered." Chris stood over the Elite. "And you're usually a little smarter." Chris cried out as his leg was grabbed and he was pulled down, and he dropped his knife. The Elite used his good leg to kick the knife into the open manhole, where it could be heard falling with a splash into murky water below.

"_Now _what are you going to do, mighty human?" The Elite mocked. "You're unarmed…" Chris got to his feet, snatching his pistol from its holster, but saw that it was mangled and useless. He threw it to the side.

"And _you _have a broken leg, mighty Covenant." Chris retorted, walking a short distance to the tank and picking up his empty battle rifle, which he attached to a clasp on his waist. "Come on, aren't you going to use your cloaking and get away?"

"As much as I would love to do so, to hunt you later, my cloaking field was sabotaged." The Elite propped himself against the side of a half-destroyed building. "And why won't you merely radio for help? Call for more of your over-reproducing species?"

"I have no helmet radio, thanks to one of your plasma grenades!" Chris showed his teeth in a smile. "So now we're _both _helpless in the middle of a wasteland, with nothing living but us! Now what?!"

"Leave, get to your masters and beg them to help your planet…when the rest of my forces get here, your world will die like all the others!" Chris turned and looked towards the former center of the city, where a tower still burned. "You are cowards…you run when we strike, and resort to trickery to win small battles. Your soldiers care for nothing more than their own fragile hides!"

"Up yours, split-lip!" Chris grabbed a rock, throwing it at the Elite, but missed by several feet.

"No wonder your race is incapable of properly using handheld explosives." The Elite muttered, widening his upper jaws. "Come on, try again."

"You can just rot here for all I care." Chris turned, walking down the street, smoke curling around his legs. The Elite watched him go, smiling at the man's cowardice.

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Drak

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Drak growled in pain, touching the broken leg gently. Burning agony lanced up the limb, making him snarl and punch the wall of the human structure. It was not a clean break, and it would take longer to heal. Elites were well known among the Covenant for being able to heal quickly, and when this healed he would have full use of the limb no matter how bad it was splintered. Such was the nature of Elite biology.

Drak looked around the barren landscape for something to make a splint from, but there was nothing that wasn't already melted to slag. He would most likely have to search for a while before he found something of use. He dropped to his hands, holding his injured leg up. While his kind were bipedal, walking like a quadruped was not very difficult. He limped towards the tank, looking around for any metal object that would work, as wood would have been weakened and stone was out of the question.

Drak crawled under the tank, looking inside the cockpit, and he saw that, melted almost beyond recognition, there were a few drawers in a corner. He pulled himself inside, using a bit of rock to pry the slag locks apart and open the compartment. Inside this one was several wads of cloth, but nothing he could use. He used the rock to pry open the next compartment, and found a rather large non-holographic image of a human female, with a gold frame around it. He threw this to the side and opened another compartment.

A small white box fell out, labeled with a large red cross. Drak growled and threw it to the side, where it bounced out of the upside-down cockpit and outside. He proceeded to open a locked box in another corner, finding a small plastic container, which both it and its contents were melted beyond any possible use it might have had. Drak growled, looking around the slagged chamber for anything else that might have medical supplies.

"What exactly are you doing?" Drak growled, bending down and looking outside, where the human stood with pants covered in ash.

"Human, you return to gloat over your dishonorable victory? Gloat then, but do it where I can't see you." Drak turned back to his search.

"If you're looking for something for your leg…you threw it out here." Drak turned back to look at the human, seeing it was holding the box with the red cross on it. "You aren't very smart are you?"

"…why are you here?"

"Humans have a problem called 'pity'." The Human said, raising an eyebrow.

"I have no need of your pity, human, you may as well leave."

"If you want to die, fine by me." The human turned, throwing the box over his shoulder and striding away through the smoke and ash. The box bounced towards him, and Drak picked it up, opening it. There were several rolls of cloth in it, as well as some sharp metal objects and some hypodermic syringes. There were also a few vials and a tube of white paste. Drak looked at the objects in disgust, wondering how this was supposed to help him in any way.

Drak grabbed one of the syringes, looking at the multiple vials. He didn't understand what they meant. He took a bottle named '_penicillin' _and shook it, looking at the clear liquid within in confusion. He put it back and looked at another, this one labeled '_morphine_'.

"Such strange words…I have never seen them before." Drak put the syringe back, taking out the tube of paste, but it was unlabeled. He took out a bandage, unrolling it and looking at his leg. If he could find a splint, it would work. A bit of metal rod stuck out of the ground nearby, and Drak pulled at it, a bit of rebar coming out of the ash. It wiped it off, setting it down as well as the bandage. It would have to do as a support. Now all he had to do was try and set the bone in its proper place, or it would heal improperly. He grimaced as he touched the leg. "This is going to hurt…I will have to do it…"

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Chris Harper

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Chris turned when he heard a scream behind him, one of pain and anguish. He clenched his teeth at the howl, looking down at the ground. "Damnit, damnit, damnit…I know I'm going to regret this, but I have to know what happened…" Chris had only gone a few dozen yards, and made it back to see the Elite on the ground by the tank, grimacing and wrapping a bandage around his leg, placing a bit of rebar in the bandage, and then another, and continuing his wrapping. It was like a cast, but not hard or as effective. But it would hold the bone in place while it healed. The only problem was, the Elite would have to move around, and this splint wouldn't help him.

"Need any help?" Chris called, and the Elite looked up at him in disgust.

"You again, human?" It growled. "Why can't you just leave me and find your own help?"

"Because I can't." Chris walked down a slope of ash and rubble, but kept at least ten feet away from the alien. "I asked if you needed any help."

"You are the one who did this in the first place, why would you want to help me?"

"Humans are very inconsistent." Chris muttered. They stared at each other for nearly a minute.

"…well?"

"Well, what?"

"Are you going to get me a crutch? Or do I have to walk on all fours for the rest of the week until my leg heals?" Chris stood there in awe for a moment, and then looked around for anything that would hold an Elite's weight. "I do not need your help…you know that I would kill you if I was armed, or could move."

"And I would too, except that you got rid of my knife." Chris couldn't find anything around, so he slowly approached the Elite and held out his arm. The alien growled and brought up his hands to defend himself, but realized he was not attacking.

"What is it now, human?"

"I'm going to help you up." Chris said, and the Elite looked at his arm, making a hissing noise.

"Get away, human…"

"Do you want my help or not? I will gladly leave you here to die." Chris grabbed the alien's arm, pulling him to his feet.

"Unhand me, human!"

"Shut the fuck up." Chris snapped, showing his teeth. The alien was a little taken aback at this gesture, and went silent, having his arm thrown over Chris's shoulder. "Be glad that humans are so inconsistent. If we weren't, your race would be dead by now…" The alien growled, but said nothing, putting his weight on Chris's shoulder.

"…what is your name, human?"

"Chris Harper."

"…though I would rather dance upon your corpse…I am obliged to thank you. I am Drak."

"Well, I hate you too."

"At least we are agreed."

Chris helped the alien begin to walk slowly down the blackened street, the smoke around them clearing to show more devastation in all directions. Chris could only hope he was heading in the right one…


End file.
